


you may be gone, but you won't be forgotten

by blurring_the_lines



Series: collection [18]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: 9/11, Angst, Heavy Angst, September 11 Attacks, Terrorists, heavy stuff, terrorist attack of 9/11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28154292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurring_the_lines/pseuds/blurring_the_lines
Summary: tribute to 9/11 attacks
Series: collection [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041193
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	you may be gone, but you won't be forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t care if it’s December eighteenth. I was thinking about this, and I had an overwhelming feeling to throw up, so I wrote this. I don't want this to sound insincere or fake, but I so desperately wished this never happened. those people didn’t deserve it. 
> 
> Songs I listened to: Zombies (the Cranberries), You found me (the Fray), How to Save a life (the Fray), What they'll Say About us (FINNEAS), i don't want to watch the world end with someone else (Clinton Kane)

Percy was eight when it happened. He didn’t remember most memories from before he was nine or ten, but when something as big, as  _ impactful _ , as this was, you don’t just forget about it.

He wasn’t there, he didn’t stare it in the face, he wasn’t  _ in the building  _ when it happened, but he was close enough to feel the effects, to see the air. His mom had just dropped him off at his school, which was a few miles away, and he was walking toward it- the car line had gone about a block long- when the ground shook, slightly. He didn’t know what was happening, at first. It didn’t feel like an earthquake- those were stronger, but in the distance, there was a boom, and then there was dust and pieces of  _ stuff  _ everywhere. Glass, debris, rock.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. They had never talked about a situation like this. 

He ran.

He ran, until he made it into the building, after seeing the ambulances and police and the loud sirens, and the fire, and the  _ boom _ . He ran into his English class, where the teacher had pulled up the news on the projector.

_ “It’s 8:52 here in New York, from what I understand there was a plane crash on the southern tip of Manhattan. You’re looking at the world trade center, we understand that a plane has crashed into the world trade center…” _

His voice fades out of Percy’s mind, because he’s sitting there, talking about it, when he’s so obviously in Manhattan when people are  _ dying _ and they’re hurt, and he’s just  _ talking _ about it. There’s a picture of the Twin Towers, and it’s on  _ fire _ and it’s smoking, and there are people on the ground, and Percy can’t say anything. He can only watch. He can’t  _ do anything _ to help. He can only watch. 

_ “As of right now, nobody can escape the top floor, the elevators cannot be used, and the stairs and exits are blocked. We can only hope that the officials can do something to save them.” _

And the camera zooms in, and  _ are people jumping _ ? It’s in that moment that Percy knows how serious this is, and he feels like he’s gonna throw up. Those are people. People like him and his mom, and the little kids he saw playing at the park yesterday, and the cashier at the grocery store, and his teacher, and his classmates. They’re  _ dying _ . Percy didn’t understand why or who would do this, but he knows it’s not right and he  _ knows _ that these people didn’t want to die. 

They didn’t have a choice.

.

It’s a few hours later, and his teacher has done nothing but has them watch the news. 

_ “over 6,000 people are injured, including EMTs, paramedics, police, and citizens. There is not a total, yet, but over 2,000 bodies have been recovered-” _

His teacher turns it off, tears in her eyes. The class is silent, and Percy still doesn’t get it, but he knows it’s too late to change it. The newsman had said over 2,000 bodies have been recovered as if that’s all they were. Bodies. Not people with lives, and families, and homes. People who are alive.

_ People who were alive. _

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I just realized today how big of a deal this was. It was always just something that happened. And yeah, okay, sure I cry everytime we learn about in school, but I didn’t realize. I just- It makes me sick. To know that people, the same species as innocent babies, and men and women who save lives, would be able to kill others, without a second thought.  
> I tried to be as accurate as possible, I'm sorry if I got anything wrong. Let me know in the comments if I did.


End file.
